Laughlin, who played football at Milwaukee's Washington High School and attended Marquette University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison, died Thursday in Thousand Oaks, Calif., his family announced Sunday.

Laughlin's daughter, Teresa Laughlin, told The Associated Press that the cause of death was complications from pneumonia.

Laughlin was best known for the "Billy Jack" films, which also starred his wife, Delores Taylor. In 1967, he wrote and directed (under the pseudonym T.C. Frank) and starred in "The Born Losers," a motorcycle exploitation film that became a big box-office hit.

The 1971 sequel, the vigilante-themed "Billy Jack," was, after a legal battle with Warner Bros., released independently. It also became a box-office smash, though it generated controversy for its suggestion of guns and violence as justice-seeking tools. Its theme song, "One Tin Soldier," was a hit single for the rock group Coven.

Laughlin co-produced and starred in all four "Jack" films, including the final one, 1977's "Billy Jack Goes to Washington," about the title character taking on corruption in the U.S. Senate.

In a case of life imitating art — or more specifically, imitating "Billy Jack Goes to Washington" — Laughlin ran for president three times, the last time in 2004 for the Republican nomination against incumbent George W. Bush.

In a 1999 interview with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel — when Laughlin was in Milwaukee for his high school class' 50th reunion — he said he was a rebel at Washington High School, circulating a petition so students could wear jeans (not standard classroom wear in the 1940s).

He discovered acting while at Marquette and decided to head to Hollywood — with his wife, Taylor, who was seven months pregnant, and with only $101 in his pocket, he said.

After landing smaller roles in several movies, Laughlin starred in Robert Altman's 1957 drama "The Delinquents." He appeared in supporting roles in several hit movies in the 1950s, including "Tea and Sympathy" (1956), "South Pacific" (1958) and "Gidget" (1959).

Although he focused his energies on his own projects starting in the late 1960s, he occasionally took small roles in Hollywood productions, including 1978's "The Big Sleep" and 1981's "The Legend of the Lone Ranger." But mostly, Laughlin worked hard to go his own way. In later years, he wrote a number of books, on topics from cancer to Jungian psychology.

In the 1999 Journal Sentinel interview, Laughlin said he was often asked about making another "Billy Jack" movie, often by younger moviegoers, for whom its message still resonated. He summed up the movie's message in a line spoken by Taylor in the film: "It's easy to die, but it's a hell of a lot tougher to try to make it a better world to live in."